Session 10a (Stars of Io)
The party leaves the Underdark and wins a Tournament Status *DM: Bryce *Players: **Raymond - Naiveral ***XP: 1750 **Ryan - Wuelasselin ***XP: 1750 **Paul - Gnarlimb ***XP: 1750 **Shelley - Zem ***XP: 1750 *Guests **Lucy - Eva **Ken - Magus *Date: July 30, 2012 *Location: Lucy's Basement Summary Getting out of the Underdark After recovering from the siege of Eclavdra's Fortress, the party decides that it is time to bid farewell to the foul depths of the Underdark. They travel, for a while, until Wuelasselin feels comfortable performing a Teleportation ritual. Due to some Teleportal DysfunctionRK1, it takes several attempts before Wuel is able to open a proper portal. For the first attempt Wuel attempts to open a Portal to Fallcrest in order to reconviene with Nimozaren and attempt to find the Metalic Dragon of Nentir Vale. This attempt is met with magical interference and recorded message stating that the attempt was unauthorized and the identity of the caster has been recorded. Wuel's second attempt to create a stable portal is targeted to Calimshan; this is also met with failure. Finally Wuel suceeds at creating a portal to Veltalar. The party decides not to stick around Veltalar and leaves town immediately. After clearing the city limits the party summons their Dragonfly mounts and flies westward along the southern shore of the Sea of Fallen Stars. Sapra (Whale Town) After days of buzzing across the countryside on their Jade mounts the party notice a port town made up of the wet dock and a series of floating islands above it. The town seems to be experiencing an unusually high level of activity. Noticing that this town is in one of the "Dragon Areas" marked on Naerumar's Map the part decides to investigate the area. Landing their dragonflies outside of town the group proceeds on foot. In the town they realize that the town is having some large whale themed festival that seems to be attracting peoples from all over Faerun. After ascending to one of the upper islands via flying manta ray, the group stops in a festival kiosk. From the kiosk worker they learn that there are many festival activities to participate in (including Bear-Wrestling) as well as Sapra's first Annual Battle Royale. After expressing interest in the Battle Royale, the party is directed by the kiosk worker on where to sign-up for the final slot. Signing up for the Tourney The Naiveral and Gnarlimb pool their money for the party's entrance fee (10,000 gp), after learning the details of the competition. The Battle Royale is a friendly battle competition (not to the death) involving eight parties of four. The grand prize of the competition is a State-of-the-Art brand new luxury airship, second prize is a set of Griffon mounts, and third prize is a large sum of festival tokens. The party also learns that the Battle Royale was almost ruined by the disqualification of one the teams. The team had lied about their place of origin--the team was from Goldweaver's kingdom of Platonis and the city of Baldur's Gate. All Battle Royale teams have lodgings provided for them in a fancy inn, the Copper Inn. In the inn's common room the party mingles with other combatants, particularly a group of half-elves that called themselves 'the Creeping Vine'. The party also visits their private room, which is outfitted with luxurious beds and a gift of 5 festival tokens per party member. The Parade The group sees the Queen of Whale Town (which is possibly the most insulting title a dragon or woman could have) and discover she is Javanvallos, the Copper Dragon, which apparently is common knowledge to just about everyone... but the groupRK2. All Fun and Games 'til Someone gets Cursed After the parade, the group heads toward the festival grounds. One of the first festival merchants they encounter is peddling crazy hatsRK3. Both Gnarlimb and Wuelasselin are drawn in by the offer of headgear while Naiveral and Zem ignore the merchant. The group splits up to enjoy the festivities. Naiveral and Zem find the bear wrestling cage; Naiveral easily wrestles the poor beast to the ground while Zem picks the pocket of one of the lookers-on. Gnarlimb attempts a Maze but is unable to complete it in the allotted time. Later, Zem and Evie of Twisted Vine attempt an obstacle course and both succeed. Gnarlimb, Naiveral, and Wuel participate in Guess the weight game; after observing for a while Naiveral notes that there is probably some sort of trick to it. Wuel confirms that the fat human woman is actually a gnome employing illusion magic. Gnarlimb uses his knowledge of the gnomish race to guess a weight and wins the prizeRK4. As the trio was leaving the weight guessing tent a Gnarlimb and Wuel notice a beggar with a sign asking for money. Compelled to both Wuel and Gnarlimb move to give the beggar all their wealth. On the way Wuel has an idea on how to defeat the compulsion. He turns to Gnarlimb and asks for his money. Gnarlimb compelled to comply give Wuel all his money. Then when Wuel starts to move toward beggar, Gnalimb asks Wuel for all his money. The pair continue this game of hot potato until Naiveral gets fed up and asks the both of them for all their money, which they happily do. Naiveral is not compelled to give the beggar any money. Before leaving the festival grounds the party spends their festival tickets on some gear. The Battle Royale! Qualification Match The party finds themselves up against a group of Warforged Warriors calling themselves 'The 1st Battalion' RK5 Intermission The party watches the other qualifying matches as well as the 1st semi-final match Semi-finals The party finds themselves up against a group of Dragonborn calling themselves 'Bahamut's Pride'RK5 Finish the Day The party returns to the inn. Congratulates the losers on well fought battles Final The party finds themselves up against the 'Creeping Vine' RK6 Commentary * RK1 **I understand why there was a need to railroad us toward a particular destination, but it did feel kind of obvious here. That said, the recorded message from the Nentir attempt was a pretty good touch. * RK2 **Good use of a random NPC overhearing our party's conversation to overcome our group's crippling paranoia. * RK3 **Neat idea for a curse, but Ryan's adoption of the hat kind of crippled how it played out. * RK4 **The variety of games was nice, but I think much of our slow down for these sessions was due to this essentially being a split-party situation. The rewards for the festival were neat. * RK5 **Honestly neither of these fights seemed very interesting or memorable. * RK6 **The last fight of the Battle Royale was more interesting, though Lucy's rolling in mud made things rather easier than they might otherwise have been. SG: I liked the whale town and the festival. It was fun and I had the chance to pick pockets at random. The town and the festival gave us more freedom to go and do whatever we felt like within boundaries instead of seeming to restrict us to one path. I would have liked to discover more about the cursed hats. They were an interesting (and at times useful) part, but they remain unexplained to me. I liked the idea of the whale ship even though I know where it came from and would like to have a portable version of the ship's windows to carry around next time we are ever in the underdark or fighting baddies on high cliffs/whale ships/clouds/empire state buildings/godzilla's head/general areas of great/dangerous heights. PP: Sapra seemed to be a well designed town, but I feel like we really only scratched the surface. If things hadn't gone so badly with the Queen (it'd be nice to learn her name somehow...) I would have really liked to have stayed. Hopefully we'll have occasion to go back. The carnival games were a fun bit of variety, and the little arena bouts were fun too. Cramming that much activity into one session was a little hectic for me, but hey, it was a carnival. Getting some stuff we never would have bought otherwise as prizes was cool too. I didn't really understand how to deal with a maze using dice rolls, especially on such a short timer, so that bit felt a little awkward. The cursed hats were an interesting little mystery, but in the future, you should probably write in big letters at the top of the curse's description "YOU CAN'T TELL ANYONE YOU'RE CURSED" because I very nearly blurted out my curse when I first started reading its description. RB: As annoyed as I was by the cursed hats, it was kind of an interesting sidequest, but it didn't feel like it was meant to go anywhere or be anything but a nuisance. Were we ever meant to be rid of them or were we going to have to deal with these damn things for the rest of the campaign? I would have liked the opportunity to track down and punish those responsible for them, but it seemed like too much of a dead end. Maybe you don't know this about me, but I *hate* being tricked and I *hate* having my actions limited, so at the very least give me the satisfaction of turning the characters responsible into burning corpses. The PVP was fun and I'd like to try it again sometime with a group who knows what they're doing. Also, props on the whaleship, that thing is hella sweet. Loot *Crazy Hat (x2, Cursed) *Festival Prizes: **Subtle Knife **Sapphire Sheath **Hat of Disguise **"Read ALL the Languages!" spectacles